Fall Plant Updates

 This weekend I worked on moving and caring for some of my outdoor plants.  Let's start with the poppy plant that a friend gave me early in the summer.  It finally bloomed THIS WEEKEND!!!

It survived the freeze, frosts, and one snowfall.  I touched the above bloom and it popped open.  Hopefully seeds will fall.  I will wait a little longer since this is literally a late bloomer this year to trim it back and mulch it.  I planted some seeds nearby it of a fluffy pink variety.  Can't wait to see what spring will bring.

Foxglove (free seeds from the library) really produced plants, but they did not bloom this year.  I transplanted them EVERYWHERE.  Here they are in the orchard to see if the deer are going to eat them.

Underneath all this wonderful compost dirt from the woods are daylilies.  A friend from church gave them to me.  I can't wait to see what color they are.  (She forgot.) She has AMAZING flower gardens!  Two little lily plants that she gave me are from an earlier time this year.

The 92-year old lady that I longarm quilt a lot for gave me purple Bellflower plants.  I have been wanting these for over 20 years!  Here's a whole bed of them planted this week.  I dug them from her house on Tuesday.  I planted them on Friday morning...in the light rain... in my pajamas.  I got them in just before the big rain.  God watered them in for me.

The same friend also gave me a bag of blue Forget-Me-Nots.  They were a handful of dried up plants that she grabbed from her flowerbed thrown into a McDonald's paper bag.  She told me to plant half of them then (in September) and half of them in the spring after the frost.  They are a biennial.  The first group of plants are doing great.  I haven't trimmed back my snaps in the old kettle yet.  On the warm Ohio days a bloom pops out now and then still.

These next plants are ones I'm super excited about (from my 92-year old friend as well).  They are called Red Hot Pokers.   They get 36" to 48" tall.  I can't wait to see the bright colors against the old berry barn as a backdrop.  It sits out of the way (not used anymore) in one of the fields.  I mow this area.  I can't wait to be driving on the mower and seeing this surprise.

Along the back side of the old berry barn are more blue Bellflowers.

Here's a tiny plant of Beebalm (Monad).  I think this is the light maroon version.  I'm not sure.  I remember seeing it blooming in her flowerbed and asked her if she had enough of that if she would give me some.  

Below are more Red Hot Pokers planted next to $1 clearanced mums from our local Tractor Supply store.  There is are also some lams ear in this row.  I'm sure as things progress that I will have to move something as they grow.  The chickens and cats LOVE to go under this coop.  It's were the good dirt is perfect for the chickens to take a dust bath and the cats to hide and look for mice.  I have to put hardy things here because the chickens like to root them out if I don't carefully watch them.

I also planted over 300 daffodil bulbs that I dug out of my big flowerbed that was too much in the shade for daffodils.  I moved them out to the ditch by the road, along the driveway, and on the sunny edge of the woods.  I can't see what produces flowers in the spring.  I've owned and moved these bulbs for over 30 years from the house I had before I was married to here.  It was time to break them up anyways.  I know there will still be a ton of bulbs that come up in the flowerbed where I got them.  I'll try to get them out of there when I start weeding in the spring.  

That's all for now.  Hopefully I will get more things moved and ready for winter with a few days off for Thanksgiving break.